


Something Shiny in the Distance

by Barb G (troutkitty)



Category: Past and Present Tense Series - Barbara Geiger, Tempest Trilogy - Barbara Geiger
Genre: Crossover Pairings, Drag Queens, M/M, Selkies, Shapeshifting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-28
Updated: 2014-12-28
Packaged: 2018-03-03 22:30:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2890346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/troutkitty/pseuds/Barb%20G
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A selkie and a drag queen walk into a wildlife preserve cabin… and a long forgotten debt brings two strangers together to save a life. </p><p>Finn doesn’t know if all mythical shape-shifting seals are drawn to bright, shiny things, but it’s definitely one of his weaknesses. Something has been drawing him home to Victoria all week, but when he spots a flash of light on one of the islands off the BC coast, he realizes that what’s been calling him isn’t home at all.</p><p>Ren has always known that he’s going to die young, and has lived his life accordingly with all the glamour and flair he can possibly cram in, both in and out of drag. He can feel the end coming near, but his grandmother once told him that when death was creeping up, to go to the beach and let his presence be known. The silver sequined gown that’s catching the light might not be his best dress, but it’s definitely his shiniest.</p><p>Larger powers are at play than a lone selkie and a fabulous marine biologist could ever know, and a passing encounter may just be what they both need, for a glimpse of hope and a second chance before time runs out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Shiny in the Distance

August 2006

Finn loved to swim in his selkie form. He cut through the water as though flying. He wasn’t due back for three more days but he just wanted to go home. His master, Paul, had given him a week off as a reward for a job well done. He’d been planning to head south where the water was warmer and there were more varieties of fish, but in August there were always a kind of salmon about to spawn. Since he’d been forced into his master’s service three years ago, the only real pleasure in Finn’s life was food he hunted down himself. He could crack open sea urchins practically anywhere he wanted. 

He’d spent the past five days hunting specifically for the rounded bellies of the females. He had stripped the fat belly flaps from the fish, cooking the strips of meat as a boy scout would hotdogs on a stick until the lines of thick white fat went crispy and tasty. He’d soaked the meat in salt water while he gobbled down the eggs and then scraped out the cheek meat off the skulls like marshmallows. Even with the large northern sea lion rook to the south, the salmon sharks out in the deeper water and all the bears lining the riverbanks all waiting for the spawning fish, there was enough for all in August. The fact that most of the fish weren’t going to make it to the spawning grounds was a design feature in the species, not a flaw. Finn had many things in his life he should legitimately feel bad for, but only eating the choice bits of the fish he caught and throwing the rest of the meat into the brush wasn’t one. He slept out in the rocks in his selkie form at night and the remains were always gone come morning.

He woke up on the fifth morning with the desire to go home pulling him. Paul had told him not to spend more than a night in the bay he’d grown up in, which meant he’d have to go back to the apartment earlier, but he could spin it into missing Paul and not being able to stay away. He’d been stuck at home for the past year; his childhood friend Devon had been in town, reconditioning a boat. Finn and Devon were lovers on Finn’s one free night a year, but Paul had forbidden Finn to see him otherwise, which meant Finn had been either with Paul or stuck at the condo. Luckily the building had an exercise room in the basement with treadmills or Finn would have gone completely insane. 

He heard the barking sounds from the sea lions long before he could see them, and headed out to sea as far as he could to avoid them. Lone seal-shaped things in the open ocean were like ringing the dinner bell, but there was a wildlife preserve island he could swim around. Technically Finn was still a juvenile seal despite being twenty-one and legal everywhere as a human, but as a single bachelor male seal, he didn’t want any trouble. There was nothing real seals had that he was interested in having, forget fighting for. The rook had a new alpha though, and the sea lion was all bluster. Finn just wanted to stay the fuck out of the way. “The fuck out of the way” was a highly specific technical length.  
Thanks to the island, the ocean never got deep enough that Finn lost sight of the bottom. Sharks rarely allowed their dorsal fins to give away their position in a sneak attack and there was never any ominous tuba music. But a school of fish was swimming around him lazy and spread out, so Finn was the only predator around and he was a very well fed one. 

He just wanted to go home and sleep in his own bed for a night. But if he called Paul and asked to spend the rest of his week off in the bay where his grandmother lived, it was going to cost him something. He’d given over control of his life and body to Paul. Finn didn’t have to be forced; sex was just part of being owned by a human. Stories talked about the human and the selkie marrying in folklore, which was the nice way of cleaning up the act of forcing sex out of a mythical creature. Paul was still rough with him even when Finn submitted. Finn didn’t want to go back any more than the fish wanted to be hauled into the boat, but no one asked something dragged out of the sea for permission to do anything. 

Finn went out of his way to scatter a school of fish that had become too complacent. He caught a fish in his jaws, ready to snap its neck but let it go, only slightly rumpled. He didn’t have to cause suffering for suffering sake, which was what was what separated him from humans. 

He kept to water just deep enough to let him skim over and under the surface. His sleek body was so streamlined that he skipped like a perpetual stone over the surface. When he was underwater, he liked crashing through the ceiling of the world, and over the surface, he felt like he was flying. 

He saw light reflecting off something on the rock jutting out from the shallow of the bay at the horizon. Anything shiny caught Finn’s attention. Handsome men, flashy boats, sparkling personality, Finn was always hungry for anything that could be consumed.

The shiny thing was a man lounging on one of the large rock formations on the shoreline. He sat with his legs crossed and his arms back supporting himself. He wore a shining silver sequin cocktail dress on a deserted wildlife preserve. His shoes had metal spikes in the black leather patent. The dress was short, barely passing his thigh to show off amazing stocking-clad legs. The hem wouldn’t have covered the black lace on top of the stockings if he’d been standing. 

The human’s scent told Finn he was a young, Japanese man. It hadn’t been Finn’s bed calling at all. Finn was supposed to be here. The human hadn’t put on any makeup and his hair was short but very well styled. He had beautiful cheek bones, beautiful, elegant eyebrows sculpted neither too thin nor too wide. He had an almost perfect V shaped face and Finn’s animal brain liked just how symmetrical it was. The young man shifted his weight onto just one of his hands and used the other to shade his eyes, not scanning the horizon but obviously searching the area of sea Finn was floating in. All the stranger would be able to see was a Californian sea lion’s head popping out of the still water, but his gaze honed in to where Finn was.

“You coming in?” the human called. He didn’t have an accent, or, if anything, it was west coast BC born and raised. He took his shoes off, pushed to his feet and jumped from rock to rock back to the shore. He was very light on his feet but his scent was mostly human with a sliver of otherworldliness. No part of it was a fae creature, like Finn, but there was definitely something off.

Finn recognized it before the stranger reached the shore. The human had a whiff of death to him.

With a splash and a kick off, Finn swam to the sandy beach. 

The human on the shore looked as though he was part of a photo shoot. The water that lapped at the shore was just the ocean breathing. His high-necked sequin dress had seen better days with several spots worn or missing fish-scale sequins and he had a utilitarian black knotted cord around his neck, with a rather noticeable lump out of place just below the neckline of the dress. Even when he tossed his shoes past the water line to wade into the ocean, he moved like a dancer. The smell of death came off the pulse points of his throat and wrists as if it had been applied like perfume, but Finn could tell that it was seeping out of his pores. He wasn’t much longer for this world and he seemed to know it the way any creature would when it was their time and their fate was unavoidable. But he was here, now, and he was beautiful. Finn felt called to be of service to the young man in the moment. 

Finn swam in the shallow water until it wasn’t deep enough for him to float. One second he was in seal form, the next he was stretched out the shallows, wearing nothing but his leather jacket. 

It didn’t float behind him like regular clothing did, even with the zipper open. The human put his hand on his hip. “Stand up.”

Finn did so. “You act like you’ve seen a seal turn into a man before.”

“You’re not a seal. You’re a Californian sea lion,” the human said. He stepped into the water, stockings and all, and made his way to where Finn stood. He put his hands on Finn’s face -- Finn was taller but not by much -- and kissed him full on the lips. Finn put his hands on the human’s waist over the silver sequined dress. The human’s body was alive and warm, but the heat had come from the sunning he’d done on the rock. The human kissed with tongue. Finn had parted his lips at the suddenness of having a beautiful if very strange man up against him. The human let go of Finn’s face to take Finn’s hands to bring them down and under the dress so that Finn was now cupping the human’s ass. 

This human couldn’t stand still. As soon as he had Finn’s hands where he wanted them, he jumped up so that his long legs were wrapped around Finn’s waist. His arms weren’t muscular in any way. He had a strong grip on Finn’s shoulders, holding himself onto Finn’s body like a zebra mussel while he slowly lowered some of his weight onto Finn’s hands still cupping his ass. He could have just said, hold me, I’m going to use you like a stripper pole, but every step had been a test, seeing if Finn would let the human do what he wanted without words. As a selkie, Finn was ten times as strong as a human his own size so holding the weight wasn’t a problem. Finn could have just dropped him in the ocean but Finn was far too fascinated with the whole process to do that. Only once the human was secure did he obviously study every inch of Finn’s face. “And you’re gorgeous,” the human announced. 

“Do you have a name?” Finn asked.

“Do you?” the human returned as though the question were a volley. 

“I asked you first,” Finn said, needing schoolyard logic to think. He was out of his depth in half a foot of water. He adjusted the human’s weight so that he had a more comfortable grip. Even though he hadn’t let go, the human wrapped his arms tight enough to drown Finn if they were in deep water. He had some apparent trust issues. “I’ve got you,” Finn told the human. 

The human relaxed his death hold. “I don’t want to give you my name. I come here to get away from it.”

“In that dress?” Finn asked.

The human shrugged, leaning back so that his elbows rested on Finn’s shoulders. 

“What are you doing here?” Finn was now carrying the conversation as much as the human.

But talking about himself seemed to revive the human. “I’m a marine biologist. I’m here counting sea lions.” He did another shimmy with his shoulders. “One.”

“You’re here for the rook on the mainland?” Finn asked.

The human nodded. “There’s an observation tower on the other side of the island. The alpha changed over the spring so it’s extra important to count the young. I was rooting for Hepburn 071, but Garland 001 was massive.” The human shimmied a third time, his hard cock now pressed between them.  
“Are you game, selkie?”

“If you are, human,” Finn said.

The human’s smile was beautiful. “I’m always game. Let’s go to my cabin.”

There was nothing visible but trees, sea grass and sand dunes, but Finn could follow the smell of paint that had been baked in the sun, glass, and the pit the human had a fire in the night before last. Finn took a step, but the human’s grip around Finn’s neck and waist was so tight it was starting to hurt. “Hold on,” Finn said. 

Without saying anything, the human gripped on his neck as Finn moved the human out in front of him so that Finn carried the human like a bride, stepping over the threshold between the sea and the land. If there was anything significant to it, the human ruined it by kicking out his feet. “Wait! My shoes.”

The human didn’t seem to have any doubt that Finn could lower the human enough to snatch the shoes and then pick the human up. For all the kneeling and cowering he normally had to do to keep Paul happy, Finn felt ten feet tall.

 

Walking in the sand with the extra weight was more trouble than Finn expected it to be, but he didn’t let it show. Soon enough they were at the small cabin’s threshold. The yellow spray-painted sign informed any passer-by that the door was to remain locked but the key on the side of the door could be used in an emergency. The property belonged to the BC Fish and Wildlife. In a brighter font, someone had added that there was no phone inside. The hook where the key should have been was empty.

The human fished out the yellow neon float from the cord around his throat. “Sorry it ruined the line of the dress, but it’s regulations to have the key on you at all times while you’re on the island.”

“Why did you get all dressed up?” Finn asked.

“I was fishing.”

“For me?” Finn asked. 

The human unlocked the door, still in Finn’s arms. The cabin wasn’t that big. The bed and the desk and the fireplace took up a majority of the room that wasn’t the kitchen or the communications center. The big radio had an old CB radio doohickey on the desk and a very sleek, modern looking laptop so anachronistically out of place that it looked like time traveler product placement. Everything else in the cabin looked like it was made in the 1950’s. Except for the human in his sequin dress and expensive stilettos. The only footprints in the sand had been bare foot or boots. He’d walked out to the rocks carrying his shoes.

Finn’s ears rang. This wasn’t like him at all. He didn’t literally pick up strange humans and carry them back to their cabin. For being fae, he’d lived an incredibly sheltered life, only ever in love with one person. He’d gone to an all boy’s school and Paul had snapped him up the day he turned eighteen. He was sure some selkies would be happy to have sex with strange humans in sparkling dresses on wild islands, but that wasn’t Finn. He’d tried to go through life leaving as little wake as possible and this human was all splash. 

The human pushed away from him and landed on his feet gracefully, up again on his tip toe as he took a step to ready himself and then spun around. Again, his hands came down on Finn’s shoulders, but only long enough to pick up the collar of Finn’s pelt and pull it up off his neck. Once he got the jacket up, he pushed it back over Finn’s shoulders and let it drop. He’d stripped Finn with an economy of movement that was beautiful. Finn let his arms straighten so that the leather jacket would slide down his arms and pool at his feet. What Finn did on vacation was his own business. Paul had rules that Finn agreed to in order to go, but outside of what was explicitly stated, his free time was his own. Maybe it was time he went a little wild, like the island.

The human was staring at him. Finn wouldn’t have let anyone else touch his pelt, but this human wasn’t built to be angry at. The dark part of his eyes were extra wide and innocent even when the turn of his lips was too knowing. He was as blameproof as Finn’s pelt was waterproof. “You’re a beautiful thing, aren’t you?” the human asked.

“You are too,” Finn told him. 

“I know,” the human said, without a trace of demureness. “Turn around. Let me see all of you.”

“I already belong to someone else,” Finn said. “If you try to steal my pelt, it won’t mean anything. I’ll take it back from you and be gone.”

“I just need to borrow you for the night,” the human said. “No names, no promises. If you see me again in the city before I… If you see me, you don’t know me. I promised my lover I wouldn’t do it again, and I haven’t. You’re for medicinal use only. I can feel it.”

Finn pressed his palm against the human’s chest. The beat was strong and healthy, but there was a murmur in it, like shark’s form all but lost in murky water. “There must be something you can do,” Finn said. “Doctors and the like. It might be preventable.”

The human touched Finn’s lips. “I’m as healthy as a horse. None of their tests will prove anything, but I’ve always known. I’ve had six years more than I ever dreamed with the most amazing man you’ll ever know, only he would never be able to see you because he isn’t of this world. He may write his stories, but he lives in a solid reality.”

The human had slipped into Finn’s arms again. Finn pulled back before they could kiss. “I need a name,” Finn said. “I can’t keep calling you the human if we’re going to have sex.” 

The human pressed his lips together. He tapped his finger against his lips. “I’m going to keep calling you the selkie. You were so beautiful moving through the water. What’s it like to swim like that?”

Finn didn’t even have to think about it. “It’s like flying. On the surface you break through into the sky and underneath the whole world is three hundred and sixty degrees around you. It’s the most amazing feeling in the world.” Finn was easy to please. Good food and being able to swim would have done it. 

“Sex is the most amazing feeling in the world,” the human corrected. “I don’t care how good swimming is.”

Finn pulled a long face.

“How could you possibly not have good sex at your age?” the human demanded, crossing his arms.

“It’s complicated.”

“Good sex is never complicated.”

“I’ve been with my master three years. I get one night a year off with my lover. We’ve only been together twice. It’s never long enough.”

“You poor thing,” the human said. “How are you even here?”

“Paul lets me out sometimes when I’ve been particularly good. As long as I stay away from Devon, he lets me go.”

The human kissed his fingers and then pressed them against Finn’s lips. Finn licked off the taste of the human’s mouth. There was a sweet taste to him that Finn enjoyed as much as he did the fatty bits of fish eggs, but in a completely different part of his brain. Finn wanted to taste more just as the human put his hand on the back of Finn’s neck and pulled Finn in to another kiss. The sequins against Finn’s skin were like dry scales. It should have been uncomfortable, but Finn liked all different kind of sensations. The human kept shifting next to Finn so that there was always an edge of scales sliding against Finn’s skin. 

“Don’t worry, little selkie. I’ll make sure you enjoy yourself,” the human said. 

The human bit Finn’s throat, hard enough to pinch his skin but not enough to break it. Despite all that Paul did to him, Finn still enjoyed the rough sensations. He hissed, but the sound bubbled out of him. 

“You don’t speak like any human I’ve ever met,” Finn said. “Is this just you?”

“There’s nothing ‘just’ about me,” the human said. “I’m fabulous. You can call me that, if you want.”

Fabulous ran his teeth down Finn’s neck. The name suited him. The more he bit or scratched Finn’s skin, the harder Finn found it to think. He pushed the human away. He’d been hot on the beach, but he’d been sunning on the rock before Finn arrived. Now that he was in the cabin, the temperature of his skin was plummeting.  
Finn needed Fabulous at arm’s length in order to think. “I don’t understand. I brushed up against death as much as anyone has. I’m not immortal in any way.”

Fabulous leaned against him, but not in a way that tried to get past Finn’s defenses. “You can’t feel it, can you? You’re brimming with life. I just need another year. I swear. Please. I can make it work with what I have.”

“Having sex with me isn’t going to give you that,” Finn said. His hand came down Fabulous’s ass. He had a fabulous ass. Finn slipped under the dress. He wasn’t wearing any… his brain slipped in the word panties when he really meant underwear. The stockings were being held up all on their own. Pity. Finn had the sudden urge to snap the elastic of a garter belt. 

Fabulous leaned back into Finn’s hands. “I know what my grandmother told me. She said when I felt like my death was creeping up, to go out to the beach in an abandoned place and let my presence be known. This isn’t exactly my best dress, but it’s certainly my shiniest.” 

Finn touched the sequins. From where Fabulous had been sitting on the rocks, the fish scales had looked like they were reflected sunlight. Up close, he saw how many were broken or missing. The dress didn’t even have an A-line. It was the same width under the sleeves as it was the hips, waist and hem. It clung to Fabulous as though it had been made for him, but if a woman had more of a figure than the average teenage boy, it wouldn’t have fit. “She said help would come. That’s you, if you want to be. I just want one year. Fourteen months will be awesome. I’ll get a Halloween out of it. And that will do me, I promise. Just… do this for me. I’ll make it good for you. No offense, but you don’t feel like you’ve had a lot of kindness in your life. I promise I’ll be gentle.”

Finn froze. He’d been so miserable for so long, but he knew Paul would truly hurt him in a way that could never feel good if Finn showed it in any way. “How did you know?”

Fabulous traced out the line between Finn’s lip and his skin. “We all have our talents. My boyfriend can fix anything in the rewrite. I can find other lost souls. Come to bed with me, selkie. I’ll bite you all over.”

Bite, not lick, not kiss. Finn held his breath. Fabulous kissed Finn on the divot where Finn’s throat met his body then let his tongue swirl around the skin. He laughed, an exhale of breath puffing out across Finn’s wet skin. “I know you want it gentle at the same time.” Fabulous dragged his manicured nail back along Finn’s jawline. The nail scraped a line that heated up the longer it was on his skin. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“I’d like it both ways,” Finn said. “But I only want sex in me. I’m internal. It’s—“ Finn didn’t want to break out the complicated way that some selkies fit with others. It was complicated and involved. He didn’t want to tell Fabulous that he was an internal male, because then he’d have to explain how he need skin to skin contact when being penetrated to connect on the inside with his mate. Humans were the universal adaptor, so Finn could skip the mythical creature biology primer.

It was so much nicer anyhow just to watch the human smile. Fabulous’s entire face lit up. He was still young that he didn’t have any crow’s feet to go with his serious expression, but he was beautiful with the wrinkled that came along with a full smile. He was entirely human and wholly something else at the same time. Fourteen months wouldn’t enough time left on the planet for Finn if he got to spend every day of it with Devon. Finn could live five hundred years if his heart didn’t break or a shark didn’t get him. If he couldn’t pry his heart away from Paul, Finn was happy to watch Devon grow old and die before he made any drastic decision about his life span. “You are always going to be beautiful,” Finn told him.

“I know,” Fabulous said, again without a trace of false modesty. He looked away in a practiced move, lowering his eyelashes that were longer than most males but didn’t smell artificial. When he would kiss Finn’s body, Finn would feel the lashes bat at his skin. 

Finn tugged on the dress. “Will you take this off?” 

Fabulous turned away suddenly. The dress had a high throat but a low back. Silky swoops of cloth gathered and flowed behind him. Finn had felt his body and knew that there was no actual waistline on his narrow, masculine body, but the dress gave the impression of a nipped in waist with such a plunging back. The dimples on his lower back showed. Fabulous grabbed the edges of the dress and pulled it up and over his head elegantly in a practiced move. He’d crossed his elbows before pulling it up over his head then tossed it casually over his shoulder. 

The dress fell in the corner, hitting the wall with a dry, raspy rattle and fell straight down onto the floor. Fabulous turned around, naked but for his stockings. He was very pale but under the scent of death was the smell of SPF 90. He put his hand on his hip, flexing his leg out like a ballet dancer. 

Finn looked down and drank the sight in. Finn loved the male human form. Devon had grown up swimming, skiing and boating. His body had started to develop noticeable muscle when he was just a young teenager. Fabulous wasn’t built like Devon’s gorgeous body; he had the start of a six-pack, but it said more about his fast metabolism than any stomach crunches. He was too skinny and his skin, now that Finn got a better look, had a slight yellowish tinge. He was dying. Despite the beauty, it was obvious. 

Fabulous dusted off his hip, looking away from Finn. His dick was hard and proud, as elegant as he was. He’d waxed or shaved completely. The stockings made the bare skin look naughty, not prepubescent. He preened. His porcelain complexion was still on the elegant side of pale, but in another few months he’d be sickly. “You see?” 

“I do. I’m sorry.”

The young man shrugged, drawing his toe back in and putting both hands on his hips. The stockings were feminine, not something Finn had wanted to want but he’d gone to a private all boys’ school and anything soft was a weakness. This young man was so pretty he could have been a girl even without makeup or a wig on. “I’ve always known. Always. Then I met Colin and I wanted a future with him more than I ever have wanted anything. I kissed every boy I came across until I kissed him. My shy little geek boy. I was going to fix his computer. He was wearing the university’s big green sweater and sweat pants. Sweat pants,” Fabulous repeated, to be sure Finn understood the horror. Finn didn’t, but he nodded along.

If there was one thing for certain, Fabulous loved the sound of his own voice, but then, Finn liked it too. He hadn’t told this story to the point where it had become a practiced tale, so the words all stumbled out. “I wasn’t even going to kiss him, but he was so shy and blushing and I thought why not, might as well give him an awkward, questioning boner, you know?” 

Finn didn’t. He nodded again as though he did. “Colin didn’t even ping my ‘dar, you know? Total quiet, innocent kid. I was wearing kitten heels and this gorgeous pale lavender cashmere sweater. He stood up from his chair when I walked into his dorm room, but I pushed him back into his seat threw myself in his lap. You need to kiss straight boys quick, you know. In and out before they even know what’s going on. I’d gotten punched a couple times and I didn’t know what the hell I was thinking. I was just a kid. Kids do stupid shit. I wasn’t thinking. I had just lacquered up my lips and the fact that I almost just kissed him on the top of his head with a big, sarcastic smooch leaves me shuddering. He was so straight-looking. But I pulled his chin up and I thought… kissing people who don’t want to be kissed is bullshit. I was going to get myself killed, but maybe that was some of the appeal. If I laughed it off, the straight boy had to, too. Sitting in Colin’s lap I wondered what the hell I was doing with my life that I got off on freaking out straight-boys. I was all set to let him push me off and I’d fall in a way where I could show off my shoes as I kicked my feet, but Colin didn’t push me off. I was sitting so precariously on his lap sideways that he put one hand around my waist and the other across my knees so I didn’t fall. When I fell, it had nothing to do with how careful he was holding me.”

Fabulous sounded like he was skipping ahead in the plot. “What happened on the chair?” Finn asked. 

"He smiled like he'd been waiting his whole life for the baby drag princess I was to throw myself in his arms and add color to his ordinary life. He bit down on the tip of his tongue and splayed his fingers out so that just his wrists were touching my hot little bod as I draped over him. He was so afraid to touch me in case he did it wrong. His eyes were so wide. My beautiful boy. When we kissed, oh selkie. You don't know. My gorgeous, shy, dorky nerd. No one had ever been so right for me like he was. We had to stop kissing long enough to go to my room where the condoms were. He didn’t have any of course, because I think my modest boy would have died of shame before he managed to bring a condom box up to the drugstore counter. I had a bucket of them, all ribbed for his pleasure. I've wanted to be wanted my whole life, but I didn't know what wanting someone else felt like. He kept sneaking glances at my dick and his face went crimson. But he continued to look. He could never say I want your hard cock in my ass, fuck me now. He could say I'm ready. He could guide my dick into him, but he couldn't say anything else."

"He sounds wonderful," Finn said. It wasn't enough, but Ren looked teary-eyed. 

"I’m awesome at sex. Getting the other guy off was just something I had to do so he'd let me fuck him again. It was a means to an end. I tore through relationships as though I were a collector but once I had it, I think I enjoyed breaking their hearts and making them moon over me more than I liked the relationship stuff. I would mock them mercilessly with the new man I was with. Colin knew I wasn’t good at keeping a relationship, but we just fit together. I used to joke that I’d break up with Brad Pitt before the third date, but Colin and I never ended our first one. We never left each other’s side, but for class. And it wasn’t because I had to be with him or anything, it was because I didn’t understand why I should be alone when I could be with Colin, and he felt the same way. We were inseparable, and I loved it. I realized I didn’t have any real friends, just exes who still wanted to be with me, but Colin had real friends who liked him as a person. And they liked me, because I had the good sense of liking Colin.”

“But?” Finn asked, when Fabulous stopped for a breath and didn’t continue.

“But,” Fabulous repeated. “But my parents wanted me home for the summer. Colin didn't want me to go. I was on full scholarship, but working for my uncle I could make four times as much in his renovation business as I could working for minimum wage in Edmonton. I had no place to stay; the dorm closed down for the summer and his parents didn’t even know I existed. I’d have to pay for a room. I made such a big deal of how our love was forever and it could last the four months until September. All it took was a pair of shoes outside my price range as a college student, and a financial advisor who got off on me talking down to him. I talked down to everyone when I was nineteen. I didn’t even realize I was getting him off until I realized his I’m not worthy was getting awfully breathless. I thought I was all that, but I was just a dumb kid. I was so embarrassed when I figured out that me and my attitude, stomping around in my new shoes on the deck of his boat, was getting him off. I thought he was just stating the obvious that he was stupid and useless and he didn't deserve me. I lost control so quickly, but he was over forty and I’d just turned nineteen. Messing around with college boys is like a fish tank and he was open water that he’d chummed himself. I was going to tell him it was a stupid mistake and it was over, but then he had an even better pair of shoes from an even more exclusive designer. I know that sounds horrible. I know it makes me into some kind of..." Fabulous stopped suddenly. "Do you think that makes me a whore?"

"I was just going to go out with Paul for the six weeks between my birthday and going to college," Finn said. “Devon was always so broke. My family had money. I just wanted to spend a month and a bit hang gliding and parachuting and eating in restaurants that spun around slowly to show you the whole city. Even when he took me to nice places, though, he was still a jerk. But he played with my memories so every time we fought, he’d make me forget.”

Fabulous exhaled. "That’s horrible. I wish it was just someone messing around in my head. I knew I should have ended the whole thing, but I got stuck. Colin still called every night and I honestly was happy to hear his voice, but Finance Guy was keeping me later and later and I knew Colin knew. Every time I tried to end things, though, Finance Guy accused me of being a whore. He kept giving me things, expensive things and I kept telling him he didn't have to, but everything he gave me added to the obligation. At first I could justify it as long as he didn't touch me. Then it was okay as long as I didn't touch him. I stopped answering Colin’s calls. His messages stayed polite. Most guys I’d dated started to cry by the fourth message and were calling me a pansy slut by the sixth, but Colin kept pretending like there must have been a technical reason I wasn’t calling him back. I would play each message back on my phone dozens of times, just to hear his voice. Finance Guy snatched the phone from me and took down Colin’s number. He said if I didn’t start behaving, he’d call Mr. Nice Guy and tell him everything we’d been doing. I was completely trapped.”

“That’s not your fault,” Finn said, as carefully as he could.

Fabulous gave Finn an old look. “You don’t believe that about your own circumstances, and your master straight up forces you. He never forced me. He never laid a hand on me. I just couldn’t get off the merry-go-round. He wanted to put me up in an apartment and just have me be his dress-up dolly dom. He didn't tell me he was married or that he had three kids. His oldest was older than I was. He had a really great job, but all the real money for the boats and the condos was his wife's. We'd gone condo hunting over the last week of August and when I went to the lawyers to sign the paperwork, she was there. The check she gave me was certified and made out to cash. Have you ever seen one? The numbers weren't just printed, they were stamped out in little bumps. There were so many zeros. I was so trapped and then suddenly I could go back to Edmonton and be with Colin, but only if he’d have me back. I almost cried. I told the nice lady that I had tried breaking it off a couple times but he went so mean so quickly. He would tell me all the time that I didn't love him and I was only with him because he gave me things. She believed me, but let me keep the check. I couldn’t tell Colin about it. I have a numbered account and everything, just like in the movies. Finance Guy would take me shopping in stores I could never afford. He bought me dresses I could wear to restaurants where the menus didn't even have prices on the lady's version, but he'd never pull my chair back. Colin pulled my chair back at chain restaurants.”

“And of course Colin took you back, right?” Finn asked.

Fabulous smiled at the memory. "Yeah. His parents were going to be there. I had to wait until I saw their car leaving the parking lot. Colin was such a big dork. I heard how much he gushed over me during the school year. His parents lived on the other side of the city from the campus but they couldn't deal with him being queer, so Colin moved to the dorm. It was a big thing he was getting a roommate. I didn't want him to yell at me in front of his parents. If it meant I could stay I would have let him yell at me all he wanted, but he was just so happy I came back. My beautiful geek boy had been crying because I was a slut. I planned my wardrobe down to wearing briefs and tube socks. I flattened my hair. I wore his stupid university sweatshirt that I'd stolen because it smelled like him. He asked me if I wanted my stuff in his closet and I said yes and that was it. Colin's a writer. He always has to know why things happened, but this one time, he never once asked me to explain." 

Fabulous smiled. He'd been fairly defeated but his smile was back to being predatory. 

"We fucked all night long. I dressed up as an average college guy to beg his forgiveness. My suitcase was just to give Colin the pleasure of kicking me out if that was what he wanted to do, but I had a naughty school girl outfit packed in it just in case. The whole bit. Thigh high white socks, plaid skirt, lacy underthings. There was a party going on in the common room and it was probably a good thing, because Colin always took noise complaints so personally. I’ve always enjoyed being put over the lap of a man I’ve fucked and will fuck again. I have a great ass for spanking, I have to say. And Colin pretends he does it just for me, but I’m the one whose stomach was over his dick. He likes the naughty stuff. He just can’t ever say he does. He flipped up my skirt and pushed my panties down and took his time to build up the burn. I thought he’d just go to town on my ass and I’d deserve it, but even after he took me back, he never let the spanking stand in for a punishment. I don’t suppose you’d ever…” Fabulous’s question trailed off.

Finn shrugged. “Not a spanking, no. It was a crop.” He didn’t want to get into any more detail. His classmate, Charlie had “caught” Finn willingly in the tack shop with the riding crop. Finn had felt the tension change and stood still for the first blow even though he could have pushed away from the saddle he was leaning against and go. When he didn’t say stop, the leather bat had caught Finn enough times his brain buzzed with endorphins, but he hadn’t actually gotten off on it and it hadn’t led to anything more. Finn only ever wanted Devon.

Fabulous put his hands on Finn's hip and swayed back and forth like kelp in a slow current. He let go of Finn just long enough so that he could turn around so that he was right up against Finn's cock, and slid against Finn ever so slowly. He reached back and let his fingers wander up and down Finn's neck.

Fabulous shivered in the memory. "I let him take my wrists and pull my hands over my head, pinning them down to the bed. I don't know how much it hurt his hand, but he really gave it to me. My ass was red into the next day. I didn't have to pretend it didn't sting. He let me cry and squirm but I wasn't allowed to say swear words. Colin came up with the best rules. The redder my bum got the more I told him I was sorry and it was never, ever going to be a bad girl again. He told me he knew. It was just a kinky game and it didn't mean anything, but it wasn't just anything. I was more myself when I was in a costume than I ever was just being myself. He knew I was sorry. I’m not good with apologies. Before Colin, as soon as a guy got offended I’d said or done or kissed something or someone he didn’t like, I just pushed on. There was always a new boy on campus who would want me on his arm.”

Finn wondered what that would feel like. Canadians apologized all the time for things they were sorry about without taking responsibility for, but he was always apologizing in earnest to Paul, taking full ownership of the weather or traffic lights or restaurant delivery times. “You guys sound pretty perfect,” Finn said.

Fabulous made a harumping sound. “Not really. It’s like we're fighting all the time now. That was six years ago. I know he loves me, but he’s got this growing up thing down and I’m drowning in it. I can design a tracking system to better follow progeny of the Northern sea lion like nobody’s business, but taking out the trash on trash day? How do you remember all the stupid little bullshit things?”

Finn wrapped his arms around the faint brands on the inside of his elbow. He knew how Paul got Finn to focus when he’d started out as flighty as Fabulous obviously was, but he wouldn’t recommend needing a blowtorch and a cufflink to keep an already trapped selkie in line. He made an encouraging sound, telling Fabulous to keep going. Finn didn’t want to get mired back in his misery, and Fabulous had no trouble keeping the words flowing.

“I even know what I should be doing. I try to do the right thing when I know I should, but I keep taking the easy way out and he keeps letting me. And I know that sounds like I'm still blaming Colin but I’m not. I want to be better, but I spent my teenage years learning how to fill in an exaggerated lip line and how to wax the back of my thighs. I didn't think I'd ever be this old. Colin just always seems to know how to be a grown up. I was either sick that day or I was fantasizing about two bare-chested firemen and their giant..." Fabulous paused. "...hoses. I have to fix things but I'm running out of time to fix them."

Fabulous finished, his cheeks bright with a shade of pink that was very pretty but made the rest of his bare skin look even paler. No, that wasn't right. He really was grayer, flushed or not. The human had dropped his hand down to Finn's hips during the story. Finn was so hard if he squeezed his dick in the right spot by the base everything would be over. Finn hadn't been one of the few gay students in an all boy's school without learning how to squeeze his thigh muscles just right to lessen part of the erection. It wasn't an emergency brake so much as it was a delaying tactic. The human, his back still to Finn, motioned to the sleeping bags zipped together on the bed. "Would you make yourself comfortable?"

Finn had gotten hard at the spanking description. He had liked the riding crop specifically because he didn't need to be over Charlie's lap for it, but if it had been Devon, Finn would have wanted to be over his thighs.

Where the human nuzzled Finn, his skin was cool. His fingers were icy touches and his back and thighs even with the stockings were cool wax. Time was starting to be an issue here, too.

“I don't have any condoms. I can’t have them with me. They’re a social license to operate and Colin deserves someone who doesn’t let sweet talk sway him. He takes it so personally. When I went out it was because I was looking for something, not because he’d done something wrong. So I stopped going out and I threw myself at my wardrobe.” Fabulous scratched his arm. “I promise you I’m not sick, not with anything you can catch. I just got a full work up and everything was perfectly fine. Colin’s it for me, and I promise I’m it for him. He doesn’t think there are other men in this world when I’m already here.”

“I’m safe,” Finn said. He had vials drawn for insurance. He was always afraid that whenever his blood was taken to the lab it would somehow be flagged as non-human, but not even the doctors who had stitched Finn back together after a shark attack had noticed anything strange. Human antibiotics had worked on the cesspool of bacteria that was in the shark’s mouth. Finn would still never forget the way the teeth had scraped on his bone. Finn shook his head. “Any time I go to Alaska, I need four vials of blood drawn for the insurance. He doesn’t use anything when he takes me, but he hasn’t been at me since I got back and I was good before I left.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s nothing. He doesn’t have to force me. You don’t have to understand that, but it’s true.”

“He can’t own you,” Fabulous protested.

“If you can’t understand, I get it. But I belong to him. He can’t force me. When he tells me I have to do something or I can’t do anything, I don’t have any problems at all following his orders because I can’t disobey him the same way you can’t fly.”

Fabulous raked his bottom lip over his teeth. “That’s horrible.”

“That’s being a selkie,” Finn, keeping his chin up. “Once a year I get to go find Devon. That’s all I need.” Finn felt smaller for having to say what happened every time Paul got that look in his eye. “I have a safe place in the condo. If I can get to into my closet, he leaves me alone.” But Paul just had to touch Finn on his body somewhere and all the fight drained out of him. He submitted to make it easier on himself. 

“I thought you said you had to follow his orders,” Fabulous said. 

Finn shrugged. “He wanted me to run.”

“You said you’ve only been with your lover twice?” Fabulous asked. 

Finn nodded. He hadn’t let Devon inside his ass. He’d been excited at the thought of sex by the door. “Don’t let that stop you. The last thing I am is a virgin.”

Fabulous got into bed. Anywhere his body touched Finn’s it was cold and waxy. His heartbeat was slower, too. His dick brushing the back of Finn’s thigh was still hot, though. Finn brought his knee up, bracing it against the metal zipper of the sleeping bag. It was no colder than Fabulous’s skin. Compared to how thick Devon was, Finn had no problem spreading his legs. 

“This is the second time you wanted to have had sex?”

“You should hurry up,” Finn said. “I don’t think you have a lot of time.”

Fabulous started to kiss the back of Finn’s neck. The licks turned to nips. He wasn’t gentle about it, either. Some of the bites had a vicious edge to it that if Finn hadn’t been reaching back, holding his ass open for this strange human to fuck him, it would have been quite painful. Instead he grunted and thrust himself back harder. 

That made sense. If Finn understood anything about his body, it was condoms didn’t give him the connection he wanted. Even Paul could get him off, he was that sensitive. Fabulous reached out and grabbed something from the shaving kit beside the bed. It was a single use container of lube, like a ketchup or soy sauce packet.

Finn's felt a flush spread over his face, but he reached behind him while spreading his legs. He'd never done this before. He didn't have that much of an ass; that would take both padding and muscle and he didn't have a lot of either to spare. The human was busy tearing open the packet, and when it tore open, Finn smelled glycerin and a water-based lube. He liked that kind the best. 

"Colin calls me at night when I have phone reception. I can bring lube with me.” Fabulous moved over Finn. Everything the human did was by feel. He braced himself with one hand and guided his dick up to Finn. His slippery finger found Finn's opening and spread more of the lube around the ring of muscle. Finn couldn't help but tense up against it. Fabulous kissed the back of Finn's neck, "Relax." 

Finn couldn't. It was like he didn't know how. He couldn't hold out against Devon or Paul but he couldn't force his body not to clench. The human laughed, not mocking Finn but generally amused at the situation and then bit down, hard, where he'd been kissing. 

Finn felt his body open right up. Jolts of pleasure, one from the bite, one from the head of the cock now inside him, shot through him. Smelling the human had been one long delight on the beach, but Finn had grown accustomed to the scent and his brain stopped reacting to it. The connection inside of him started the pleasure all over again. This wasn't like Devon at all. They'd used protection because neither of them had thought Finn would have wanted to have been penetrated until it happened. Paul fucked him raw, but Finn didn't know sex could feel like this. 

Hot pleasure rocked his body. "Don't move," he said, fighting his body not to fuck itself back against the rock hard dick. Fabulous's dick was as cold as his fingers, but the temperature difference just let Finn feel how hot he was in comparison. He just had to drive himself straight back, connecting his internal source with this human who needed him. His dick got hard and he came in his human form like anyone else, but when he lay in bed at night alone and wishing he could be with Devon, he could touch himself in a way that produced a tiny flutter like the big one with no mess or fuss. Finn had forgotten he could even do it. When puberty had hit, the bigger way was a lot more aggressive. Finn would have to be careful doing it, though. If Paul knew Finn could press his knuckle up behind his testicles and rock ever so gently back and forth and find pleasure, he’d find a way to put an end to it. 

Fabulous shivered, but didn't thrust. His nails dug into Finn's hip, the pain as good as the bite had been. Finn's body relaxed even more. The human slid further into Finn without pushing. "I didn't move," the human protested. 

"It's me," Finn said. "I'm an internal male. It's how I connect with my lover as a selkie. " 

"Are all gay selkies like that?" Fabulous asked, like a marine biologist rather than someone with his dick in Finn. Finn fought back the need to get off, but couldn't stop a flurry of little orgasms, or whatever the moments were. 

Finn buried his face into the crook of his elbow. He laughed despite himself. The human made a sound in the back of his throat. He pulled Finn back onto him then stopped himself. "What's so funny?" 

"How would it work if all gay male selkies were internal? Most males, gay or straight, connect externally. There are straight internal males, though. It has nothing to do with who you want to fuck." 

The human paused. "How would that...work? Being straight and internal." 

"You'd spend your life looking for a straight external female," Finn said. He grabbed the pillow and hugged it. "And if they couldn't find their exact partner, they could always love a human. Humans are universal adapters no matter how you connect." 

The human took a better grip on Finn's hips. "You're amazing," he said. "May I?" 

His dick was warming up. So were his fingers but his heart was still struggling. Finn didn't know if vigorous sex wasn't going to cure him or make the rattle in his breathing worse. Not that it mattered. He was going to die if they didn't. "Go on," Finn said. It was what he'd been brought here to do.  
"This is so great," Fabulous said. He got into the rhythm of it right away. Quick staccato bursts pushed him deeper and deeper into Finn. "But it's only going to be one time. Just one time. I swear." 

Finn bit down on his arm just to have the sensation of his teeth in flesh. He didn't know the human well enough to ask if he could bite him. "You don’t have to explain yourself," Finn said.

"I do." The human had been lying down on top of Finn, their legs tangled. He pulled on Finn's hips. Without being told, Finn got up on his knees. He wished he could hold himself open and bite his arm at the same time. 

"You don't," Finn said. The new position caused a new flurry of tiny orgasms, each one building up to something bigger. He couldn't clench down in the new position. The human slapped Finn's ass hard enough to break the chain reaction. Finn grunted in thanks. 

Fabulous rubbed where he had just smacked. Finn tried not to purr. The human continued pounding into Finn. "But I do. Who knows what I would get into if I didn’t have to explain myself. I’m not like Colin. I’m not like anyone. I need things from strangers good people don’t seem to want.”

“You don’t know that,” Finn protested, not sure why he felt the need to defend the human. “I let Devon have sex with people who aren’t me. It’s not a moral flaw. Not everyone has to fit into the same mold.” 

The human’s fingers were colder still when they gripped onto Finn’s hip bones. His breath was icy against Finn’s shoulders. As the human was getting closer to the bit inside Finn that his lover was supposed to connect with, it made him highly aware of his surroundings instead of triggering anything internal. For being a wildlife sanctuary, the island was awfully quiet. There had been birds singing in the trees and grasshoppers calling for mates. The sky should have been bright blue outside the window, but everything was a distant, grey color. The shaft of light cutting through the gloom of the cabin’s interior caused the dust in the beam sparkle. 

The whole room had already been pretty sepia-toned. A green mug upside down in the dish rack and pink highlights denoting the edges of regions inside the map retained their color, but even the human had greyed out. Fabulous wouldn’t die in this cabin and Finn had no idea when his death would meet him, but this cabin would give anyone entering it a brief otherworldly feel. Finn and this human were doing things with powers neither of them had any access to. They weren’t cheating death, but they were leaving an IOU that they’d signed and dated on this spot. 

Time stopped. Finn had only been in this time once before, when he was dying of the infection that was raging in his body from the shark bite. All the blood they'd pumped into him to replace what he'd bled out was entirely human. It had felt as though he'd been alone forever, away from every other sign of life. There had been no sounds from the hall, no blue sky out the window, just nightmares and grayness. 

Finn wanted to feel alive. He arched his back, pulling up even higher to give the human a better angle. He hadn't wanted to submit to this human, but he had no problem giving his body over. It wasn't ever going to feel real once it was done. "Harder. I can take it."

The human snorted. He leaned over and bit down, hard on Finn's shoulder. Finn jolted. Blood rushed to the site, even if the teeth didn't break the skin. The rush opened Finn even more, letting the human slam into him. More fluttery jolts shot through him, an order of magnitude larger than the first. As long as the human had his teeth in Finn, Finn couldn't come. The sounds he made were hard, begging cries, but he wasn't asking Fabulous to stop. No one had ever bitten him that hard. 

The pain was so much that Finn almost lost his physical erection, but he'd never gotten off this hard before. It wasn't hard to top; Paul had triggered an orgasm or two while pounding Finn's prostate as a physical response to the stimuli. Devon had been gentle and kind on their three nights together, but nothing Finn could ever say or do would make him hurt Finn this hard. The pain was pure, untainted by sick have-to-throw-up pain that getting hurt in the testicles did when Paul pinched him. Finn's vision didn't black out like he did when he was being starved of oxygen, everything got really, really white. 

When Finn really couldn't take any more, the noise he was making changed from gasping grunts to a whimper. Just one, barely audible, but the human let go immediately. How Finn wasn't bleeding, he didn't know. The teeth marks were white from where FInn could see the back of his shoulder. A bruise would bloom, but it would take a long time to come to the surface. Paul might see the mark of an obvious love bite, but for all his rules, don't fuck around wasn't one of them. Long after the bruise left, though, Finn would feel the mark. He wished it would be as permanent as the shark bite scars.

Fabulous had been holding his breath. His eyes grew wide and he pulled away to the edge of the bed and started coughing. What came out of him wasn't possible in the physical world, but the cabin was somewhere else. An icy cold fog streamed out of the human's mouth. When he stopped to gasp, the fog stopped and when he started again it poured out. Finn felt the cold coming off it at least a foot away. Natural death wasn't evil or rotten, it was just an intangible noun, like life or heat or happiness, but here, the death spread out the rug and slipped through the cracks of the floor and walls. 

It wasn't going to stay away if they didn't finish. As soon as Fabulous's stopped coughing, he grabbed Finn by the hips again. "I'm sorry," he said, his voice raspy like a two pack a day smoker. 

"Go on," Finn said. His touch was already warmer by several degrees. 

The dick slid right back into him.

As hard as it was, it wasn't hard enough. Finn's growl became a snarl, like a cat played with too aggressively and couldn't help the yowl. He really liked this. Devon had treated him as though Finn's body was a delicate flower. 

It felt so good to vocalize. Each thrust after the third one nudged the magic spot that was human and his magic connection as well -- the best of both worlds. When the next shivery-shakey not human climax swept through Finn, the whole sepia-lost-in-time coloring stopped. The cabin was full of bright colors that the warm yellow sun lit up. The sleeping bags hadn't been a dark grey almost brown, they were red. The black and white calendar from March, 1985 had a color photo of a green forest and blue sky. The silver sheath dress in the corner reflected the sunlight like a spinning disco ball on the ceiling, even though nothing was moving. 

The human wasn't grey or jaundiced anymore. Fabulous let go of Finn's shoulders to brace himself against the bed, and his arm was four shades brighter. There had been no vein showing through even the thin skin of the inside of the human's wrist. Now there was a thick blue line full of bright, healthy blood. Finn felt Fabulous's pulse as strong electrical current, even through the air. The human was alive again, but he wasn't quite fixed. The death could leak back into him sooner than a year. 

For how pale and cold Fabulous had been when he first touched Finn, he was entirely alive and in control now. Finn put his hands in the universal T for time out. The human couldn't fuck him as hard as he needed it to come after being bitten. Finn would have to be on top to get off like a human. There was a dumb joke about sealing the human, but Finn was above bad puns. 

Fabulous stopped, mid-thrust. "What is it?" 

"Me on top," Finn said. Need vibrated through his body like a plucked guitar string. He looked down to the stockings that were still up high on Fabulous's thighs. 

"Do you want to ride me, my selkie?"

The happiness and joy snapped off like a tap. "I'm not your selkie," Finn said. He pulled back, feeling the cock slide out of him. The human didn't try to grab him or hold him down. "Take that back."

It was the human's turn to call for a time out. "You're not mine. I'm sorry. You have to know I couldn't keep you even if I wanted to." 

Finn paused. That was true enough. He rolled over. Fabulous lay down. Finn straddled the human. He didn't have to look to guide the cock inside him. Whatever Finn had that the human needed transferred when the cock was deep inside. 

Finn looked up at the human's face to see if they both felt it. The flush to Fabulous's cheek was back and prettier than ever with the glow of healthy skin. Fabulous shifted so that he was sitting up. He move them both to do it, but had no problems doing it. He braced against the head board. "Fuck me like this," Fabulous said. "Let me kiss you." 

They had first kissed less than an hour ago as strangers. Now it felt as familiar as an old lover. Finn's body was as strong here as it had been in the water when he'd held the human's weight. He could have fucked the human for hours, sitting up and pushing back like the waves on the beach. Finn braced himself with one hand on the headboard so he could drive himself harder back and used the other on his up to this point ignored cock. 

"Almost done," Finn said, slowing his fist down so he wasn't going to get off right then. His dick almost hurt he needed to come so badly "Ready?"

Fabulous was breathing so hard he had another rattle in his throat, but this one was pure exertion. He nodded.

Finn didn't need anything else. He was already feeling the sensation of the muscle spasms he needed to come like a human male. The orgasm was so delayed that there wasn't much more sensation of peaking than he already had and when it started to wind down and leave him empty, Finn felt relieved it was over. How the human had the strength to pick Finn up and turn him over so that Finn's shoulders were against the bed, Finn had no idea. But the human wasn't completely finished. 

As tired as he was, Finn could still gripped the human's cock deep inside him. His fist was nothing as nice as Devon's mouth. The human kissed Finn on the lips then returned to the exact same spot he'd bitten during the sex as he finished.

They hadn't been more than a minute apart, but by the time the human had finished, the glow that was inside Finn stopped. Everything changed. The intimacy that was between them sputtered and died, tumbling out of the air like a gull that had been shot. The human was the picture of flushed health, but the touch of his lips on Finn's mouth had none of the magic it had even a moment before. As soon as he pulled out of Finn's ass, the preternatural gift he was giving had been handed over. Now Finn was just kissing a strange male. 

The human pushed away from Finn at the same time. "Sorry," he said as though he had lifted his foot off Finn's toes instead of pulling his dick out of Finn's body. The lube had gone sticky and the sliding sensation of felt a bit rude. That wasn't as bad as how it felt to feel the semen start to dribble out of him. 

The human pulled himself off Finn. Finn pushed himself to the headboard so he could sit up. He was suddenly starving even after having eaten so much meat he'd just wanted to sun himself just a couple hours ago. Magic cost him calories. In the month and years that followed, he would wish he could have remembered that. As the memories of the cabin started to fade, that bit of knowledge was the first to slip away like the first fish in a school reacting to the shadow of a shark in the shallows. At least the human looked well enough to live forever. 

As awkward as it was, they both took their time before they moved again. The sun was setting and Finn didn't really want to swim during the dark. "Do you mind if I bunk with you tonight?" he asked.

"I'll take the floor," the human said. He was still handsome, but Fabulous didn't suit him as much as it had. At least the color in his cheeks didn't have to look like it was painted on. His heartbeat was low and strong without a hint of a murmur. 

"Don't be stupid," Finn said. "We can separate the bags and share the bed. You won't be able to pick me up and turn me over in a little bit."

"I've always wanted to do that. Colin's bigger than me. I love the fact that he's so solid. He's so real."

"I know what you mean," Finn said. Devon had always been older. Two years didn't make much of a difference now, but when they were teenagers, it was a huge gap. Especially since Devon went through puberty at thirteen and Finn's voice didn't start to change until he was sixteen. There was nothing Devon couldn't do. "Do you have any food?"

"A fisherman came by with his catch this morning. I have a giant salmon in the icebox." The human got up out of bed. They unzipped the sleeping bags and used them as blankets to go outside wearing rather than getting dressed. Finn didn't have any clothes, anyway. He put his pelt on and wrapped up his legs in the bag. The human opened the ice box and then made a fire. It had a wire rack that was four feet that was a perfect size for the fish. 

The human took the time to build up a framework of smaller tinder to logs so that one match and twenty minutes got a good fire going. He put a kettle on the green camp stove to boil for the dishes. Finn covered his mouth to hide the yawn. He was going to eat as much as he could and then turn in, but there was one more thing he needed to know. "How did you know about selkies?" Finn asked.

The human shrugged. His bare shoulders did nothing to Finn. He wasn't attracted to the human at all anymore. He'd felt drawn to be here, but only the emptiness of his stomach compelled Finn to stay. 

"My grandmother told me of her great grandfather. She said he was a handsome young man, so handsome he could have had his pick of any village girl for miles. He picked my great-grandmother because she always spoke her mind. He went out fishing early one day after a summer festival and there was a perfectly folded yukata tucked away in his boat. A beautiful young woman, naked as the day she was born came running from the beach and begged for him to give it back. She'd met a young man village and didn't trust him not to steal her pelt."

The human paused to yawn and hid it behind his fist. "My great grandfather had a young wife with a child on the way back home, and was a kind man, so he handed it back without trying to trick her. She kissed his cheek and promised him he and his family would always come home. And he always did. Even on his last fishing trip. He had a heart attack and died bringing in the last of the day's nets, and his boat was found by two young fishermen. They brought him home for my grandmother to mourn. She said he was just as handsome as he'd always been. She could still kiss him goodbye."

When the young man finished his story, he and Finn sat in silence for a really long time. The kettle had long since been moved off the heat but when Finn poured it and a bit of soap into the plastic container used for the washing up, the water still steamed. Everything was holding onto its energy tonight. When they had finished having sex, Finn thought the young man would live forever, but like a tire with a slow leak, the human had already lost that full-to-brimming feel. A year was still quite possible. He might even make a bit longer. Finn wasn't going to bet on such matters. "I'm sorry," Finn said, not talking about for the human's great-great-great grandfather.

The human shrugged. "You said it yourself. I'll always be beautiful. The other selkie's debt has long since been paid off, but I'll always owe you. I just don't think I'll have time to ever pay you back. But my name is Ren Miyazaki. Any Miyazaki in Whitesprings is related to me. If you ever need any of their help, just tell them my name." The human, Ren, smiled. "They will remember me for a good long time."

"It's nothing," Finn said. Ren stirred the coals the fire had burned down. They'd been quiet for such a long time. Ren put the rack over the flames and salt and peppered the already gutted interior of the fish he'd bought. The eggs were still inside the rounded flank. Ren squeezed them into a bowl that they took turns eating from a giant serving spoon. Finn loved the explosion of salty, fishy goodness. The fish had been beheaded. Finn tried not to feel disappointed. The fish cheeks and collar were the best part of the whole animal. The silence continued. 

"It wasn't nothing," Ren said. He moved the fish on the wire rack. He just washed his hands in the hot water. "I was fabulous."

Finn laughed. "You always will be Fabulous to me."

Ren leaned forward and kissed Finn on the top of his head. His breath was wasn't cold at all. Finn could have started the sex bit over again, but that particular hunger had been sated. "You and your man have a long future together," Ren said, wistfully. He waved the fork. It should have been an elegant, long cigarette holder. "You have to look at the stars, not the darkness."

Finn suddenly itched to be going back home. If he booked it, he could be have almost the full day in the bay and sleep in his own bed tomorrow night. He and Paul had been having a particularly long stretch where they hadn't argued. Finn might be able to spin it that Finn couldn't bear being away for so long. He might be able to get Paul to buy a week in an all-inclusive resort once school started again. Paul treated Finn really well when they were on vacation together. Finn could swim as much as he wanted during the day and Paul was gentle when the walls weren't soundproof. Ren separated a chunk of fish where the outer chunk was raw and the fatty bit had gone crispy. He closed his eyes and let Ren feed him by hand and sucked Ren's fingers clean. Finn would try being extra attentive when he got home and take pleasure where he could find it. 

The salmon had been so thick it was cold in the center, but Ren produced soy sauce and wasabi and ate almost as much as Finn did. He was feeding something else, too. Even after what they'd done to each other, Finn didn't think it was polite to ask. When his cellphone rang just after ten, Ren's face lit up and he bolted inside. "Hello, my darling, I was waiting for your call. No, nothing's happened here all day..." Finn heard. Finn grabbed his pelt and headed for the water, leaving his sleeping bag in a heap like a shed snake skin.


End file.
